Looking forward and looking back.

I have been looking at my old sketchbooks.  I will be displaying some of them at the Garden Museum exhibition that starts next Tuesday.   So many memories in these sketchbooks!  I was thinking about Tidemill Garden and the lovely times we had there.  An oasis in Deptford.  I haven't been down that Road since Lewisham Council cut down all the trees in this delightful garden.  I can't bear to.  It could have been different, but they dug their heels in and cut down some very old trees.  Only to declare a couple of days later their support for the climate emergency.  Oh the irony! 

https://gardenmuseum.org.uk/whats-on/


2014 was a difficult year for me. The abrupt end of a longish relationship (should never have started really, but that's another story hah!) and the death of my mother.  I discovered the lovely community at Tidemill Garden in about June of that year, (just after the breakup).  I started going there every Tuesday to help with the garden and to enjoy the cooking sessions that happened every week.  People from all walks of life came to join in with the "green gym" and to cook the food that was grown there.  It was very inclusive and felt supportive and was a wonderful, positive distraction.

It was in the September of that year that my mother died.  At the time I was putting together an exhibition at the garden with Carol Wyss.  It was part of the Deptford X fringe.   I was working on a group of drawings of wildflowers, some of which I had found in the garden. I also started writing about the flowers.  I found that this helped me remember their names.  The sun was shining and the September was warm.   It's funny how you live parallel existancies. On one I was having a lovely time.  Putting my exhibition into the greenhouse along with the tomatoes and on another I was feeling sad because my mum had died.  The private view was the day after my mother's funeral.   It was a good thing to be looking forward to.    The cob oven was fired up, the beer was on tap.  And there was lots of wine.  It was a lovely warm evening. The garden was full of lovely friends and I felt happy and grateful to have the exhibition and them at this time.

Here are some photos of the lovely garden.  No longer there. 

 
 
 

Going forward, I have an exhibition to put up.  I need to go and pack up the car with my new work, the seeds of which were sown in this garden.   Click on the link about the exhibition.  All being well, I will be back in the Garden Museum in March but again, that is another story!

https://gardenmuseum.org.uk/whats-on/